Kill the upstart

What should Blockbuster have done when Netflix came out? Probably should have tried to convince all of the movie studios that Netflix was somehow ripping them off and going to cause unlimited piracy as users burned copies of DVDs.

What did Pan Am try and do to TWA? Kill it with legislation. The Big 3 US car companies managed to kill off Tucker, when it was planning on building a better, cheaper, safer car.

And while not quite on the same scale, it puts into perspective the bid by VeriPhone to kill of Square, the smart-phone based credit card processing startup.

From engadget:

VeriFone, a huge provider of credit card processing systems that's been around since time immemorial, has taken a huge swipe at upstart Square today, branding its free, headphone jack-based credit card readers "skimming devices" and demanding their immediate removal from the market. Crazy, right? VeriFone's CEO has thrown up a YouTube video talking about the exploit its thrown together, and it's more of a social engineering hack than a technical one: a bad guy makes a fake Square app for his phone, plugs in the reader, and steals your unencrypted credit card details without running a "real" payment through Square's system. They're really going big with this, too -- not only is VeriFone's sample app available for download, but they've sent notices to Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and JP Morgan Chase, which handles Square's processing. Sounds like a possible problem, sure -- but when the "exploit" is being announced in such grand fashion by a company that's most threatened by Square's business model, you can't help but feel a little icky about it. Follow the break for video.